Góry Stołowe - kraina zrodzona z morza

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  Animal life

Invertebrates

Every animal is strictly connected with the environment which provides everything it needs for living. The Stołowe Mountains are covered mostly with forests, but also with rocks, meadows, clearings, streams, peat bogs, etc. Forests differ in composition of its species stands, age, and structure and health state. Another advantage for fauna presents a number of grassy communities, peat bogs, mountain streams and water-heads. A specific feature of the land is a great number of different rock environments. The rocks and especially their deep crevices offer exceptional habitats, mainly for invertebrates. The presence of rare species of this animal group makes the fauna of the Stołowe Mountains exceptional, even throughout the whole Sudety Mountains. Despite considerably low elevations, the almost invariable microclimate of deep shady crevices with high humidity and low temperatures offers favourable living conditions for alpine, high- mountain and even arctic species of invertebrates. In the sandstone environments of Stray Rocks and Szczeliniec, there exists a large and stable population of the Bathyphantes eumenis spider. It is the only isolated stand of this spider in Poland, situated farthest to the south. Its native lands are arctic areas of Greenland, Alaska and North Scandinavia. This species on Park's request has been included in the list of animals under protection in Poland. In the same habitats, high- mountain Lepthyphantes pulcher lives, also found in the Tatry and Karkonosze (the above-mentioned species are included in the list of protected species, Dz.U. No. 130 item 1456 of 26 September 2001). The fauna of alpine spiders is represented by very rare Rhaebothorax morulus, which occurrence have been confirmed only in the Tatry and Stołowe Mountains. The uniqueness of microhabitats of sandstone crevices of the Stołowe Mountains is confirmed by the occurrence of troglodytic, alpine and high-mountain species of wingless insects - springtails. The invertebrates described so far are relics of the last glaciation period. The other invertebrates are not so exceptional. In the Park, we can find Crenobia alpina - an alpine species of tubellarians, living in the water-heads of some streams. The numerous meadows and clearings are richly inhabited by lepidopterons. Among them, we can very often find the protected swallow-tail. Of Nymphalidae, quite common are the peacock, Camberwell beauty and small tortoise-shell; red admiral and purple emperor are not so common. Another interesting family of lepidopterons is Sphingidae represented by the privet hawk-moth, humming-bird hawk- moth, lime hawk-moth, and Aglia tau of Saturnidae family inhabiting old beech woods. Coleopterons are represented by a large number of protected ground beetles. So far, fourteen species have been confirmed, including some conspicuous examples, such as Carabus cancelatus, Carabus coriaceus or Carabus auronitens.

• Invertebrates
• Fishes
• Amphibians and reptiles
• Birds
• Mammals

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